The Cast of the Die
by Callisto Callispi
Summary: They first met, ironically, at a casino. Arthur was offered the world, and he was to be the god of it. Perhaps this is a risk worth taking. Part 3 of 5 posted.
1. Playing the Game

**Author's Note**: I watched Inception last week and was blown away by the scale and depth of the movie. One of the most disappointing factors, I think, was the lack of character development. Arthur is one of my favorite characters, and I thought it such a shame that his background wasn't explained at all. We never know how or why he joined forces, and anything of his life before and after the movie.

This fic is an attempt to explain his story and his psychology during the movie. This the first installment in a like four- to five-part story sketching the significant developments within Arthur's life during his time with Dom and the others.

Ariadne will appear later on in the story of course, though there will be hints of Dom/Arthur. ;) In the meantime, **please review! **Feedback is an author's best friend.

**Disclaimers**: I do not own Inception. I'm just borrowing the characters while Chris Nolan is sleeping.

* * *

**The Cast of the Die  
**_By Callisto Callispi_

Chapter 1: Playing the Game

…

_Iacta alea est  
_(The die has been cast)

- Suetonius, _Vita Divi Iuli_ (The Life of the Deified Julius)

…

They first met, ironically, at a casino.

Arthur had an assignment, to do some digging for a client on a potential business partner. He wasn't too sure of the relationship between the client and the target, but Arthur didn't mind. He worked on a strictly a no-questions, know-nothing basis, which suited him better (he thought) than it suited anyone else.

He trailed the man unobtrusively along the rows of slot machines, ignoring the cries of delight and dismay. He unconsciously caught the eyes of a few attractive young women with fur wraps and long legs, but his focus remained solely on his job. He even partook in a few rounds of Blackjack and one hand at Poker at adjacent tables to remain inconspicuous. He lost at both and quickly left the table. His mind was too concentrated on his target to properly reason through the odds of the game, but Arthur could not help but reinforce his dislike for gambling, no matter how high the stakes. He hated losing, but even more so, he hated losing when he couldn't choose the stakes.

The target once again relocated this time to the Craps table, and as sure as a shadow, Arthur followed. Chants and cheering suddenly broke out from the table. The dice had passed to the hands of a man in a pinstripe suit, and he immediately threw a seven. The crowd behind him, who had gathered around to see how long his streak would last, cheered again.

Arthur watched the game with only the slightest bit of interest, keeping his target within his peripheral view.

Suddenly, the man with the lucky streak looked up and caught his eye. The movement was so fluid and sudden that Arthur knew immediately that it was deliberate. He started to move away from the man's line of sight, but the bodies behind him blocked his way.

"You look bored," the man called out in a jovial voice.

At least a dozen pairs of eyes turned to appraise Arthur. He kept his impassive mask firmly on his face, the mask he wore when facing clients and the barrel of a gun.

The man spread his hands, indicating to the table with its elaborate array of dice and betting lines and numbers. "You're the only one who isn't concentrating on the game. Do you even know the rules?"

The crowd around them chuckled good humoredly.

Arthur smirked faintly. "Craps is inherently a game of luck, not skill."

The man quirked a smile back at him. "I take it you don't believe in luck."

Arthur shrugged. "I believe that analysis and skill overweigh luck any day."

"Then this is the first time you've ever been in a casino!" a portly, slightly drunken man slurred. The table erupted in laughter, and the Craps game resumed, though the man who first addressed Arthur stood from the table.

Arthur cast a sidelong glance to where his target had been, dismayed to find him disappeared and his cover more or less blown. It would be doubly difficult to trail him now that his face was called to attention. He started to trail his target again, angry that some drunk on a high streak disrupted his work. As he squeezed his way from the table, he found himself face to face with the man who called him out.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "If you're here to lecture me about Craps and luck, I should tell you now that I must decline."

The man grinned, though the smile did not reach his eyes. His eyes were cold and calculating, and Arthur suddenly felt goosebumps trailing down his arms.

"I'm not here to lecture you on anything. I'm here to make a proposal."

Arthur paused slightly before answering. "I have no interest in any proposal. Now, if you will excuse me…"

The man grabbed his arm firmly as Arthur passed. The grip was not strong enough to be a threatening gesture, but Arthur snapped into a defensive mode, wringing his arm from his grasp and backing away. His movements caught the attention of some people in the casino, but he didn't care. He had felt something akin to panic in that grip—something he had felt very rarely.

"Calm down," the man said quietly, starting at him from under his brows. He purposefully glanced around at the people staring at them and nodded toward the bar. Arthur got the point. He cleared his throat and straightened his suit jacket, trying to calm himself, and making his way to the bar with the man.

"Dominic Cobb," said the man, slipping into a booth after ordering them a bottle of expensive scotch. "You can call me Dom."

Arthur sat down stiffly. "Mr. Cobb. I don't know why you called me here, but I have work left to do tonight—"

"Yeah, I know. A Donovan Guarini employed your services to dig up whatever dirt you can find on Justin Holloway, his prospective business partner."

The drinks arrived, but Arthur remained frozen in his seat.

The man called Dominic poured Arthur and himself some scotch. Dominic raised his glass in a mock toast and drank down all of the contents in his glass alone. Afterward, he looked at Arthur slyly. "True to your word and reputation, you are in the process of digging up _everything_ about him. His marriage, his business, his contacts, his _scandals_…"

"How do you know this?" asked Arthur in a low, trained voice.

Automatically he poured Dominic more scotch. The ice clinked in the glass, glinting like crystals in liquid gold. Dominic in return slid the untouched glass over to Arthur with a devilish smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"You told me."

Arthur blinked. "I've never met you before in my life."

Dominic's smile grew wider. "You have. You just don't remember."

Arthur sat, speechless and unable to move. Never had he ever blown his cover this badly before, and what scared him more was that he didn't even know how he had done it. He had taken the utmost care in concealing his identity and his business. Only the uppermost tier of the rich and powerful knew of his name, and even amongst that crowd, only a handful knew how to contact him for his services. Who was this Dominic Cobb? He didn't look particularly wealthy, though his eyes were as ruthless and…haunted…as some of the most powerful men he had ever met.

Some giggling woman and her escort slipped into the chairs beside him, snapping him out of his trance. He shook his head slightly and sipped on the scotch. He peered at Dominic over his glass, feeling a vague sense of déjà vu, as if he had met him before a long time ago. "Who are you?" he asked finally.

The man hooked his hands behind his head. A gesture meant to calm him. Arthur relaxed about a hair.

"You don't like gambling, do you, Arthur?"

The remark caught him off guard, but Arthur quickly regained his composure. "It depends on the situation."

Dominic snorted and took a sip of his scotch. "You don't take risks, I know, unless you've assessed them. You analyze. You calculate. You do things that people think are risky but are in reality fully within your control. You only do something when you know you will win."

"What is your point?" Arthur growled, finally feeling his patience wear thin. He hated mind games in which he had no control. This Dominic Cobb wanted something from him, and Arthur was impatient to find out what.

As if reading his thoughts, Dominic leaned in closely, his glacial eyes glimmering with amusement. "What if I tell you that I'm going to hire you to do the ultimate digging? To extract secrets that are so secret, so deeply inlaid within peoples' souls that they are embedded in their subconscious mind?"

Arthur remained silent.

"Of course, the risks are huge," said Dominic, leaning back again, appraising him coolly. "And in order for the extraction to proceed, I need a…let's say, a reliable point man. Someone who knows how to evaluate the risks, the possibilities, do the preliminary screening to minimize the dangers of going into a person's head."

Arthur did not know what overcame him, but he suddenly barked out an uncharacteristic laugh. "Entering someone's dreams… I've heard rumors of lucid dreaming taken beyond…" This time, Arthur leaned in closer and faced Dominic, staring him right in the eyes. "But it's nothing but a _myth_."

To Arthur's surprise, Dominic did not negate nor affirm his statement. Instead, he replied, "The greatest thing in the world is an idea, Arthur. It must be self-conceived for it to be true." He stood and handed him a business card. "Call me when you're tired of this juvenile game of chase. I have something better to offer you than computers and surface-level data written on easily forged paper."

Arthur did not accept the card, but heaven help him, his hand itched to take it. "And what is it that you can offer me?"

Dominic smirked, sliding the card toward Arthur on the table. "The world, Arthur. The world, and you as its god."

Dominic left with a final swig of his scotch. Arthur remained seated, brows furrowed in thought and frustration. His mind functioned at a burning page of a thousand miles per hour, assessing the risks over the benefits. A point man? For the ultimate digging? Sounded dangerous. The red flags were waving all over his mind, blaring out for him to forget what Dominic said, to forget Dominic himself.

But weren't some risks worth taking?

Arthur slipped the business card into his pocket, and taking a last drink of his scotch, he left the casino.

…

**END CHAPTER**


	2. Raising the Stakes

**Author's Note**: I know that this story is A/A but that it hasn't featured Ariadne yet. As a quick note, Ariadne will come into the story for the next three chapters, and the bulk of Arthur's narrative will focus on their blossoming relationship. :) In the meantime, I thought Mal's relationship with Dom was something that didn't get enough treatment... especially Mal's and Arthur's relationship. After all, Arthur _did_ tell Ariadne that Mal was lovely. ;)

* * *

**The Cast of the Die **  
_By Callisto Callispi_

Chapter 2: Raising the Stakes

…

His first experience going into the dream world was something he would never, ever forget.

He had been nervous when Dom and Mal hooked him up to the devices that pumped those sedatives into his blood. Before he fell asleep, flashes of Dom's lessons about kicks and the dreamscape fluttered through his mind. He wanted to be as prepared as possible before going into such a foreign environment, but no amount of training could have prepared him for entering his own subconscious.

He stood in the middle of the restaurant of the Four Seasons hotel. It looked exactly the same as it had before—dimly lit and elegant. He blinked, and he wondered whether or not he had dreamed up Dom and Mal. Was he really connected to tubes of sedatives?

"You have no imagination at all," Dom's dry voice said from behind him. "The restaurant, of all places? Why not a ski resort in Aspen? Or a shore house in the Caribbean?"

Arthur stiffened slightly and turned. "If you wanted to go to exotic places, why didn't we enter your dream instead?"

A soft, feminine laugh chastened them both. "Arthur, don't mind Dom. I think this is a perfectly good place to start off. It's familiar and warm."

Mal walked up behind her husband with a small smile on her face. She looked stunning in her black cocktail dress. Dom placed his arm around her shoulder, holding her close to him.

Arthur shifted his weight from one foot to the other, secretly relieved that Mal accompanied them. She had a gentleness about her that put everyone at ease, and Arthur needed as much calm as he could get. He never believed that entering dreams was possible and that there was a common meeting "space"—he supposed he could call it—that joined them together. A common space that Dom, the architect, constructed.

"So this is it?" asked Arthur, voice skeptical but with an undercurrent of curiosity. "Nothing but a reflection of life?"

Dom and Mal exchanged glances. Dom was smiling as if he were the cat that swallowed the bird.

"Hardly," Dom replied after a while, nodding his head to indicate something behind Arthur.

Arthur heard the crash before he saw it. He whipped around and widened his eyes, horrified to find that the ground behind him was crumbling and the walls were collapsing to the ground. It was a dark and stormy night, and the sky seemed to shatter in thunderous booms. The clouds and the winds and the lightning approached them like a vengeful phantom, intent on engulfing and destroying them.

Arthur quickly backtracked, panic and fear seizing his body. He stumbled over the overturned chairs as he turned to run. The ground trembled underneath his feet as if the face of the earth were splitting open. For one insane moment, he thought that this was the true apocalypse.

He felt someone grab his arm and pull him toward the door. He spun around and gazed wildly into Mal's large eyes.

"Come! Hurry!"

He allowed her to lead him to the door with Dom trailing slightly behind.

They ran through a number of hallways, escaping the screams of the people left behind in the restaurant. Arthur had half a mind to turn back to help them, but Mal held onto his arm tightly.

They soon entered a hotel room and slammed the door behind them.

At first, the silence following the slamming of the door was deafening. Arthur's body shook like a frail leaf succumbing to a chill autumn wind. He abruptly sat down on the edge of a bed, trying to force open his shaking fists.

Dom barked out a small laugh.

"You aught to be ashamed of yourself, Dom," Mal admonished, her lips tightly drawn in a frown. "This is his first time. You couldn't just make a purple sun rise in the west?"

"Aw, Mal, what's the fun in that?" Dom clapped Arthur on the shoulder, causing the latter to jump. The sudden physical contact jarred him and pumped little shocks of adrenaline through his bloodstream. He looked up and glared at Dom.

"It's an inversion of the dream," Dom said, blatantly ignoring Arthur's indignant look. "Lesson one: the architect is the person building the dream, and therefore he can unbuild it as well."

Mal scoffed at the crude explanation, though Arthur managed to get his breathing back to normal pace. Dom left his side and opened the door slightly. He peered out through the crack and turned to them. "So far, so good. Quiet. The restless natives haven't found us yet."

Arthur looked up and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "'Restless natives'?"

"Your subconscious," Mal said gently, kneeling in front of him and placing her hands on his. "What happened out there, the storm and the earthquake… They weren't yours. They were the result of Dom's interference with the architecture of the dream. Your subconscious will slowly realize that it's dreaming, that there is an intruder. It will try to…oust the intruder."

Arthur's eyes widened as he shot a look at Dom, who shrugged helplessly as he gently shut the door, leaving it slightly open to prepare for their escape. "It happens, sooner or later. The trick is to make it later than sooner."

Arthur stood up and paced the room slightly, head spinning. This was too much to absorb. What had he gotten himself into? He couldn't do this again. This was a nightmare!

The shouts from downstairs got louder. Dom glanced out into the hallway again.

Mal took pity on him. "It's better the second time around, I promise." She cast a sidelong glance at Dom. "Dom really isn't the best mentor. We should have warned you."

Dom sidled up next to him. "It's better to plunge into the deep end headfirst. Anyway, we have to go now or things are going to get really—"

_BAM!_

It all happened in a single instant, but the impact of this one moment induced far-reaching ripples that forever altered the fabric of their lives and those connected to them.

The shot exploded from the door, and Mal stiffened. Blood sprayed out from her lovely rose-petal lips, splattering Dom's crisp white shirt and face. She slowly crumbled to the ground, head lolling like a broken doll's, the spark of light extinguished from her glassy eyes.

"_MAL_!" Dom cried, his disbelief and anguish thick in his voice.

The man who shot Mal from behind spotted them, but Arthur kicked him unconscious in his head before he could shoot again. The shouts from the hallway got louder and more raucous. Arthur shot a look back into the room, seeing Dom kneeling beside Mal's lifeless body.

"Let's go, Dom!" Arthur yelled, his voice sharp with shock. "We've got to get out of here. They're going after you next!"

Dom looked up, and for a split second, Arthur saw the lost look in his eyes that would haunt him for years to come. A premonition of the nightmare that would never end for the rest of Dom's life. But Dom, a professional, quickly regained his composure. He stood and ran out the door, Arthur trailing behind him.

"We need the kick," Dom said breathlessly. "Come on."

They ran up endless flights of stairs. The atmosphere shifted around them slightly, and their pursuers were trailing further and further behind. At one point, the staircase broke off straight down the middle and shifted, successfully separating them from their pursuers. It was one of the maze mechanisms that the architect put in place.

They ended up on the roof of the hotel, up what seemed like thousands of feet in the air. The storm still raged on, and bolts of lightning ripped the sky in millions of different places. Arthur wanted to tell Dom to ease up a bit, but somehow he knew that Dom wasn't in a right state of mind. He was letting his emotions get a hold of him, which manifested in the apocalyptic turbulence of a grief-stricken soul. After all, they weren't just in Arthur's subconscious; Dom's also made up the fabric of this nightmare.

"We've got to jump!" Dom yelled over the thunder, rain splattering his face.

Arthur already knew. It was the only strong enough kick since no one was going to dunk them in water on the other side. It didn't mean he liked the idea.

He held his breath and ran to the edge of the building. He saw Dom somewhere in his peripheral vision, but all he could think was, I want to get out of this dream.

Arthur jumped at the edge, feeling his stomach where his heart should be. He squeezed his eyes shut and yelled in terror.

When he opened them again, he was in Dom's sun-warmed home.

…

Arthur spent the the days following his first entrance into the dream in a trance-like stupor. He would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, in his bed, and wonder whether or not he was still dreaming.

He was scared, that was for sure; but even worse, he was curious. He often wondered what the boundaries were between reality and dream. Some part of his mind reasoned that there was no clear line between the two places, and Arthur found himself inexplicably drawn to a world where anything seemed possible.

But sometimes, he never wanted to go back.

Dom was right—Arthur didn't have much imagination. It wasn't because of the practical nature of his work or anything. It was just him. It was his psychology. Perhaps that was why his mind always wandered back to that first dream, to something that had happened, something that he had seen: Mal's body stiffening in death, her crimson blood spraying from her lips. The image played over and over again in his head. It was the exact same scene with no embellishments, which made it more real.

Death was the ultimate kick, but that didn't mean he would ever resort to it, if he could help it. After all, death and life were inexplicably connected with no clear boundaries…just like dream and reality. Even if a person died in a dream, that person still died in some way or another. Was there ever a moment between dreaming and reality that the person had ever entered the realm of the dead even for the briefest second? Did they escape death? Were they all gods in this simple way?

Mal visited him a week after his first "dreamwalk". When Arthur opened the door and saw her face, he couldn't help but think of that one moment that haunted his nightmares, when the spark of life in her was suddenly extinguished by a smoking bullet.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," she said as she entered his apartment. She sat down after he gestured toward the black leather couches. Like its owner, the apartment was clean-cut with the simplistic elegance of black-and-white decor.

Arthur shrugged. "I'm absorbing the shock. I apologize if I've worried you by not keeping in contact. It's a bit much for me to handle, but I am getting along."

Mal smiled warmly. "Yes, I know you are. You have steel in you. I think Dom saw it immediately. He entered your dreams before he met you at the casino, did he tell you?"

Arthur shook his head. "No, but I think I knew already."

They sat in tense silence. Questions shot at a rapid-fire pace in Arthur's head, and he knew that this was going to be one of the few, if not only, chances that he would have to get answers.

"Does he enter your dreams?" Arthur asked finally.

Mal paused before answering. "Yes, and I his."

"Do you not keep secrets from each other, then?"

Mal smiled slightly. "We all have secrets, Arthur. But they aren't the secrets that you're thinking of. True secrets are feelings and desires—things that exist deep within your subconscious, so abstract that you can't describe them with words. They are secrets of the soul—something that can only be felt. Love is one, but only just one of the many."

Arthur remained silent.

"He's curious, you know," Mal said unexpectedly, leaning back into the couch. "He wants to know more, feel more."

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked, though he had a suspicion he was starting to understand. He too saw the glimmer in Dom's eyes. Ambition, perhaps. Or an obsession.

"He wants to go in more deeply. Petty data and concrete information has been reduced to child's play for him. They are too easy to extract, too simplistic. He is an artist. He wants to know more, to feel more. He wants to understand the human soul." Mal's voice, though calm, rang hollowly in Arthur's ears, and he knew that Dom had trapped Mal in his obsession as well.

"Why do you play the game, Mal?" he asked quietly.

She stared at him, and for the first time, he saw vulnerability etched on her face. It made him pity her, fear for her. "Because I want to know too, Arthur," she whispered. "I want to know the boundaries between reality and dream, whether or not they exist. Because, in all honesty, I don't think there are such things."

"You died, Mal, in that dream," Arthur said quietly. "But you're here now, alive. Isn't that proof of a boundary, of a separation? Don't seek to overcome it. I don't think you will be able to come back."

Mal smiled sadly at him and stood, and Arthur followed suit. "Always so practical. Dom chose you well." She walked to the door. "If you don't want to come back to us, it's all right. We understand. But if you do choose to come back, bring a totem with you."

Arthur raised an eyebrow as he opened the door to show Mal out. "A totem?"

"It's an object, something unique and special only to you. Something that no one can ever replicate perfectly in a dream. That way, you will always know whether or not you're in reality or in a dream."

Arthur watched her closely. "Do you have one?"

"Of course," Mal replied flippantly with a wink. She walked down the hallway and turned to him before getting on the elevator. "But you will never know what it is."

In many ways, that was the last time Arthur ever saw the real Mal, not just the shell of her former self.

…

Arthur constantly told himself that he wouldn't go back, that the risks of this operation far outweighed the benefits.

He did some background research on Dominic Cobb. He was a researcher at Oxford University, specializing in psychology and sleep studies. It was there that he first met with a professor named Miles, Mal's father. Information about his research following the date of his transfer to the Sorbonne was hazy at best. It would seem that he didn't do anything significant in Paris—he stopped publishing papers and giving lectures to students and his fellow scholars. But Arthur knew better. Dom had entered the dream, and he was establishing a reputation for himself in the corporate world as a stealth weapon—someone who could discreetly blow the cover on the greatest corporate secrets.

If he were anyone else, Dom would have caved in or died under the constant pressure and scrutiny of corporate moguls who wanted to use him just as much as they wanted to destroy him. Dom had a cool head and strong will. He was also very, very good at what he did.

Like an addict slowly spinning down a spiral of no return, Arthur returned two months following his first entrance into the dream against his strongest objections. His mind told him to fold, but his heart yearned to take the risk, to see the dream world again and master it through careful analysis. It seemed he would see this game through until the end, no matter how high the stakes.

But this time, he carried some insurance. He had made his totem the night before he decided on going back. It was a weighted red die, something that he had made himself so that no matter how he tossed it, it would land on just one number. The odds that he would show the die to someone was slim, and the odds that someone who had seen it would be able to duplicate its weight exactly was even slimmer.

He was welcomed back by Dom. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Dom's eyes were shrunken and hollow, with a terrible wisdom clouding his irises. As if he had aged fifty years within a span of a day. Arthur hardly ever saw Mal, and she never accompanied them to do their jobs. When Arthur did see her again, it was after a year on the job, when he was slowly starting to understand the mechanics of entering dreams and the process of extraction. He saw her after a particularly difficult assignment, where he had to seek refuge in the Cobb household after his apartment had been ransacked by rival corporate spies.

It was past midnight. He found Mal sitting alone on the living room couch in the dark, wrapped tightly in a blanket. Her eyes were empty, staring off into space, not acknowledging his presence. She acted as if he didn't exist. Or rather, she acted as if she herself did not exist.

"Mal?" he whispered.

She slowly turned to him, gazing at him with her big, round eyes. She blinked slowly a few times, perhaps debating whether or not he was real, and turned away.

Arthur left her without saying anything further. He felt as if he were being choked—he couldn't breathe or say anything, though he wanted to. All he could see in his mind were her glassy eyes, the beautiful yet lifeless eyes of a porcelain doll. She had shattered underneath, and her real self was gone.

When he heard of Mal's suicide and the death note that implicated Dom, he felt that somewhere deep in his heart he knew this day would come. Dom explained in a rush what happened before fleeing the country, giving him the barest of details and whitest of lies. Dom didn't give him enough credit. Yes, he knew how to analyze data and dig up the dirtiest secrets of a client or target—but he also knew how to organize and arrange the myriad of puzzle pieces he gathered to form a coherent picture.

But for Dom's sake, he feigned concerned ignorance and offered distant companionship on his lonely descent into his self-made hell.

In his own way, Arthur cared deeply for both Mal and Dom, but he was also very afraid. He was jumping into a current without knowing how to swim. All he could do was keep tossing his die and hope that he wouldn't get sucked under the water.

…

**END CHAPTER**


	3. Wildcard

**Author's Note**: Contrary to popular belief, this story _will_ be completed. :) Ariadne enters, and Arthur doesn't know what to do with her. Surprise, surprise.

**Disclaimers**: Some snippets of the _Inception_ script were directly lifted and used in the story. I claim no ownership for any part of the script.

**The Cast of the Die **  
_By Callisto Callispi_

Chapter 3: Wildcard

…

_"What the hell was that?" Arthur demanded as they packed up their equipment and prepared to get off the train. _

_"I got it under control," was Dom's sharp reply. _

_Arthur stared at him with narrowed eyes. "I would hate to see out of control," he said wryly. _

…

When Arthur first saw Mal after her death, he was more anxious than surprised. They were on a job, robbing a high-security bank. The red carpet underneath his feet was red and luxurious, and the concrete walls were papered with golden patterns. Within a hidden safe, Dom was to extract a string of account numbers of a supposed terrorist organization. They were close to succeeding, though Arthur had never counted on her being there. He knew that Dom thought about her constantly, but he never had even suspected that his grief over Mal's death were strong enough to manifest in a living, breathing woman…a woman who was currently holding a gun to his forehead.

"Mal," he breathed. "What are you doing here?"

She gazed steadily at him, her eyes glittering yet so empty in that beautiful face. "Arthur, it's been a long time."

Arthur's heart fluttered in his chest. He was in a dream, he was _almost_ certain, because Mal would not be standing in front of him. She had been dead for months.

Still, he itched to dig into his pocket and toss his die to make sure.

"_Don't move_," she snapped as Arthur started lowering his right hand towards his totem. He paused then slowly raised it back up over his head.

Mal smirked knowingly. Sometimes, the division between dream and reality were blurred, even in the most impossible situations. She—and Dom—knew the anxiety very well.

"Mal," said Arthur in his calmest voice, keeping her gaze. "We're here on a job. The kick is going to come any minute from above. You heard the music because Dom heard it, I know."

Mal cocked her head to one side, her gun arm level on his forehead. "Dom had thought you wouldn't come back after that first dream. He said you weren't willing to understand the power of such creation, such imagination, as building a dream."

Arthur endeavored to keep his face solemn, though he couldn't help wondering why she—or Dom…she _was_ Dom—would want to bring this up now.

"But I told him, no, give him some time. He'll be caught by the net, I'm sure of it," Mal whispered, cocking the gun.

Arthur tried to keep his breathing level and calculated the odds successfully tackling and stealing the gun before Mal could shoot. It would take him at least half a second to lunge, another second to get in position to wrench the gun away from her hands.

If she were as proficient as Dom was with a gun, she could blow three holes right in his head before he could even reach her.

"He feels sorry. He feels guilty. He wonders what he would do if you were taken by the dream too. You, dear Arthur, dear point man."

Arthur clenched his jaw.

"Can you tell what's real anymore?" she hissed. "Do you wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, scared that maybe the bullet in your heart, that knife in your gut finally killed you?"

"_Mal_," he said sharply. "Lower. The. Gun."

She grinned.

"You don't want to do this, Mal!"

_BAM!_

The last thing Arthur saw before the gunshot was her pupils dilating, her eyes becoming pools of black emptiness. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled sharply, muscles tensing for the killing blow.

"_Arthur!_" someone cried in the background. An enraged scream followed.

Arthur slowly opened his eyes, half-expecting to see a big hole blown in the middle of his chest, half-expecting to wake up in a VIP room of a nightclub attached to tubes pumping sedatives in his brain.

"ARTHUR, MOVE!"

Neither scenario happened.

Dom was holding a gun behind Mal, and in the blink of an eye, he tackled his late wife to the ground. It took a moment for Arthur to register what happened. He wasn't dead. Dom had shot Mal in her gun arm. The two were wrestling on the ground for the dropped gun.

Fueled by pure adrenaline, Arthur turned and ran from the scene, following Dom's halting instructions on how to locate the safe for the bank account number.

The music was louder. The kick would happen any minute!

BAM! BAM!

Arthur ducked as wooden chips of the walls sprayed his face. German curses and shouts soon followed.

Great. The target's subconscious was finally riled into action.

Arthur slid on the marble floor and ran into a door leading to a labyrinth. Leading his pursuers here would buy him some time at least.

_How is she here?_

Arthur asked himself the same question over and over again as he ran through the labyrinth. Something akin to panic flooded him, but he narrowed his eyes and firmly pushed the wave of emotion from his mind and tightly sealed it in a compartment in the corner of his brain. He would deal with it later. For now, he needed to find the safe.

Arthur finally emerged from the labyrinth and found himself outside of the bank. He paused and scanned the streets for what Dom described to him. The people on the sidewalk and street vendors stared at him conspicuously. They knew he was an intruder, but they weren't sure how to deal with him. At least, not yet. He had to hurry.

Arthur jogged along the sidewalk, crashing into hostile projections as he went along. Finally, he found it.

It was a normal ATM machine, located in the front lobby of a bank, not unlike many ATM machines found in New York or any other big city. Clever to hide the greatest secret out in the open.

Arthur pulled on the glass doors protecting the ATM, and unsurprisingly they didn't budge.

Without a second thought, he pulled out his gun and shattered the glass. Alarms went off, and the projections all stopped mid-step. They turned, and like possessed automatons started towards Arthur. The world started to quake. The dream was collapsing.

Arthur didn't hesitate. He shot the projections closest to him to buy some time and stepped into the lobby. Arthur swiped the ATM card their sponsors provided for him and Dom into the ATM, and within seconds, the screen flashed and strings of code appeared. Arthur managed to punch in the pin number before the projections started grabbing for him. The screen flashed again, and as the projections tore at his suit and kicked him to the ground, Arthur finally saw the string of numbers they were looking for.

Got it.

When Arthur opened his eyes, he was in the dark. For a terrifying second, he felt pure, unadulterated fear. Was he dead?

"Get up," a familiar voice hissed and strong hands pulled him from his chair.

Arthur blinked again and let his eyes adjust to the dim room. They were in the VIP room of the club. The German man next to them was still sleeping.

"Did you get it?"

Arthur turned to Dom and nodded curtly.

"All right. Let's get of here."

Arthur obliged.

They exited the room and split up. Dom headed towards the back exit, and Arthur to the front. Arthur descended the stairs and onto the dance floor. He squeezed by the dancing mob as quickly yet casually as he could, the rhythmic thrumming of techno music pounding in his ears. Suddenly, he felt himself slamming into someone. He steadied the woman, apologies on the tip of his tongue, until he found himself staring into startlingly clear blue eyes. Perhaps it was the lighting, but her eyes and her curly hair reminded him of—

"Let go of me, baby," the woman slurred, her lips twisted in a lopsided smile.

Arthur shook his head slightly. He wasn't dreaming anymore. It couldn't be her.

"Sorry about that," he said to the drugged woman before pushing past her. He shoved his hand into his pocket and fingered his die. He couldn't tell whether the bass or the pounding of his heart caused the tremors in his body.

He exited the club and ran into an alleyway. When he was sure that he was away from prying eyes, he bent over and vomited against the wall.

…

That wasn't the last time he would see Mal's projection, and while he dreaded seeing her, he secretly hoped that she would talk to him again. He needed help.

Arthur knew that sometimes Dom sedated himself to sleep. Arthur once confronted Dom about it, but instead of reacting with anger, Dom turned his head away quietly and asked him to leave.

Arthur desperately wanted to help Dom, but he didn't know how.

He wished Mal weren't dead. Or better yet, he wished she could tell him how to fix Dom. But other than that dream with the bank and ATM, Mal never approached him again. He caught glimpses of her in his peripheral view, or either she captured him and shot his kneecap, like the one time she did in Saito's dream. But never again did she speak with him, even if he demanded her attention. Arthur suspected Dom was behind it. Dom knew Mal said something to him, but he never asked Arthur about it, like Arthur never asked why the _hell_ Mal was materializing in every single dream.

The wound was too deep for Dom, and Arthur felt helpless.

They were in Paris at Dom's behest while Dom searched for a new architect and delivered gifts for his children to his father-in-law. Arthur, in the meantime, combed the city for an appropriate headquarters for their operation. One of his contacts directed him to a large warehouse, and Arthur paid the rent without hesitation.

When she and Dom walked in, he was assembling a number of chairs around the Pasiv device.

"Arthur, hook up our new architect," Dom's voice called from the doorway.

Arthur turned around and stared at the new architect. The first thought he had was, _She's too young._ He kept his gaze on the girl as she followed Dom into the warehouse and towards him. She seemed a little anxious, and Arthur couldn't blame her. She was following a strange man into a warehouse on whatever misplaced faith she had in her professor's word. Either she was incredibly brave, or incredibly foolish.

She finally acknowledged his stare and she looked up, lips tightening in defiance. Arthur caught the smile before it touched his lips.

"How much does she know?" Arthur asked Dom, tearing his curious gaze from her wide brown eyes.

Dom shrugged, a shadow of a grin on his face. "Not much."

"You should tell her more than what you told me when I first went it," Arthur warned.

"She'll manage. She might even handle it much better than you did."

"You guys know I'm right here, right?" the girl interjected sarcastically. "I'm not invisible or anything?"

Arthur stared down at her again. "This isn't a game," he blurted out more sharply than he intended. "This is business, and if we _fail_—"

"Arthur," Dom interrupted. His steely eyes rooted Arthur in his spot. "Hook her up."

Arthur clenched his jaw and glared at Dom.

"She's good," Dom said more softly. "She'll get the hang of it in no time."

Arthur started up the Pasiv device, watching from the corner of his eye the young architect lower herself on one of the lawn chairs so hopelessly out of place in this sunless warehouse. Arthur came in between Dom and the girl. Dom relaxed in the chair and let Arthur insert the IV into his arm, as he'd done hundreds of times before.

The girl looked apprehensive, and it was no secret to Arthur that she was trying her hardest to keep her breathing normal. Arthur crouched down next to the girl and appraised her again. She was dressed in jeans and a red jumper, but contrary to her childish image, her resolve was stronger than steel.

"I'm Ariadne, by the way," she said suddenly. She turned to him, eyes sparkling with anxiety and excitement. "What's your name?"

Arthur was surprised at her boldness. "Arthur."

She nodded at the needle in his hand. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Arthur almost scoffed but settled for smiling wryly at her. "I could do this in my sleep."

"Is that a joke, or are you actually being serious?" she wondered as he prepared the IV.

Arthur located a vein and inserted the needle with the precision of a surgeon. He caught the slight tensing of her muscles and the very visible wince on her face.

"Just relax," he said soothingly, "and remember that it's only a dream."

She half grinned at him. "Thanks for…the…warning…" she murmured as the sedatives entered her bloodstream and sleep overcame her.

Arthur set the time and watched the red LED timer display count down from 5:00. He glanced at Dom and then at the architect named Ariadne. He felt something strange when he looked at her, like a small squeeze in his throat.

Five minutes went by all too quickly.

Arthur didn't realize he had been staring at the architect for the whole duration of the five minutes until he saw her eyelashes flutter open. He saw her expression of distress, and he knew immediately that the dream did not end well.

"You okay?" he asked unbidden.

She started at his voice. "What?"

"It's never _just_ a dream, is it?" Cobb asked, sitting up in his chair. "And a face full of glass hurts like hell, doesn't it? While we're in it, it's real."

"That's why the military developed dream sharing—a training program where soldiers could strangle, stab and shoot each other, then wake up," Arthur added, closely watching the architect from the corner of his eye. She was frazzled, bewildered, and _excited_.

"Let's go another five minutes—" Dom started before Ariadne interrupted.

"We were only asleep for five minutes? We talked for an hour at least…"

"Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream," Arthur approximated, walking over to them and setting up the Pasiv device again.

Dom sat back. "Let's see how much trouble you can cause in five minutes."

Arthur stared briefly at the architect before he pressed the button. He watched them fall into a sedated sleep and wondered, _How much trouble?_ She was scared and slightly traumatized by how ever the dream ended for her, but she jumped back into it quickly. He would bet that she could cause a _lot_ more trouble than either of them could imagine.

He walked over to the small table where he was arranging his papers on the target, Robert Fischer, but his eyes kept straying to Ariadne.

Was it a coincidence that the girl had such a prophetic name? He couldn't help but wonder whether she would be able to find her way out of Mal's labyrinth, this time with Dom and himself following her.

Whatever purpose she would serve, she had never previously figured into his calculations. His mind told him she would be a liability, but the rest of him—whatever was left of him besides his mind—felt otherwise.

Out of habit, Arthur threw his die and breathed out to see that it landed on the correct face. But whatever control he previously had on this situation—the unlikely bargain with Saito, the near impossible job of incepting Fischer—he felt it slipping away.

He glanced at Ariadne again, watching her eyelashes fluttering rapidly in whatever dream she was in.

She was the final wildcard, and Arthur hoped that she would bring them more luck than misfortune.

…

**END CHAPTER**


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